“Islamic extremists”: Accomplice of AQ henchman Barot suspected in car bomb, tried to detonate twice; Update: Three men from Birmingham area sought; Update: Gov’t warned nightclubs about terror a few weeks ago

posted at 3:27 pm on June 29, 2007 by Allahpundit

We’ve got a news burst at 3:10 so it’s time for a new thread. First, the car in Park Lane wasn’t found there, it was found in Trafalgar Square and towed for being illegally parked.

At the Park Lane garage, workers called authorities when they became suspicious after news of the first incident, because the car smelled of gas.

Police and security sources say the car was found to contain components very similar to the first car — definitely fuel, and possibly much more.

They said the car is of grave concern, and could potentially be a second car bomb.

A senior U.S. official with knowledge of the London investigation told CNN the car was linked to the vehicle outside the club, and that some materials found inside the car were very similar to explosive materials found in the car near Piccadilly Circus.

Sounds like the car on Fleet Street was a false alarm so there are only two bombs found thus far. Meanwhile, at the Blotter, sources are telling Brian Ross that this is indeed a jihadist plot. And they’ve got a hot lead. Surprise:

British police have a “crystal clear” picture of the man who drove the bomb-rigged silver Mercedes outside a London nightclub, and officials tell the Blotter on ABCNews.com he bears “a close resemblance” to a man arrested by police in connection with another bomb plot but released for lack of evidence.

Officials say the suspect had been taken into custody in connection with the case of al Qaeda operative Dhiren Barot, who was convicted of orchestrating a vehicle bomb plot involving targets in London, New York, Newark, N.J. and Washington, D.C.

Officials say a surveillance camera caught the suspect “staggering from the Mercedes” shortly after parking it outside the Tiger Tiger nightclub.

U.S. and British law enforcement officials tell ABC News it is increasingly clear Friday’s bomb plot in London involves multliple vehicles, and is described by a senior official as a “terror plot involving lslamic extremists.”

Needless to say, it’s anything but surprising to find a Barot connection here. FYI, according to Ross, two cell phones were used as detonators in the first car. Both numbers had been called — twice.

Update: The second car bomb in Park Lane is also a Mercedes. The jihad don’t come cheap, baby.

Update:“How many more?” wonders the Mail, which now claims (without saying how it knows) that the suspect who drove the first car bomb “calmly parked the vehicle and walked away.”

That’s not the only scoop in the NBC report, either. Remember the update in the last post about Danger Room suspecting a crude fuel-air bomb here? Well:

The car was jammed with gasoline and 18 to 20 boxes of roofing nails. Six to eight tanks of propane, intended to mix with the gasoline in a mist to make a fuel-air explosion, were inside and around the car, counterterrorism officials told NBC News…

Officials told NBC that the car was filled with at least 250 pounds of fuel, creating a highly explosive bomb of the type that had been seen in Iraq but not, until now, in the West.

Islamist terrorist suspects convicted in recent London cases have spoken of moving up to more deadly fuel-air explosives, authorities said.

Update: The flaw in the plan? According to ABC, the fuel-air mixture was incorrect.

Update: It’s almost certainly just a coincidence, but this‘ll be good for some primo nutroots conspiracizing tomorrow morning. A nugget within reveals what the plotters might have intended here. I didn’t realize the two cars were so near each other:

One car, a pale green Mercedes, had been left outside the Tiger Tiger nightclub in Haymarket. A second, a blue Mercedes, was left a few hundred yards away in Cockspur Street, a busy thoroughfare close to Trafalgar Square. Both contained fuel, gas canisters and nails, but both car bombs failed to detonate. Had either device gone off it would have generated a huge fireball and a shock wave spreading over 400 yards in all directions. If, as suspected, one had been primed to detonate before the other, people fleeing the first blast would have been caught directly in the line of fire of second.

Blowback

Note from Hot Air management: This section is for comments from Hot Air's community of registered readers. Please don't assume that Hot Air management agrees with or otherwise endorses any particular comment just because we let it stand. A reminder: Anyone who fails to comply with our terms of use may lose their posting privilege.

Comments

Pablo: “Imagine if Richard Reid had thought to spenr $1.19 on a Bic lighter instead of yutzing around with a book of matches.”

It’s even chancier than that. Reid tried to get on his target flight the day before but was stopped by security. The next day, for inexplicable reasons, security let him through. However, that day it had rained and soaked his shoelace/fuse which would not light.

The lives of all those people on that jet hung on a rainy day. If it hadn’t rained that day, we may never have known what really happenned.

When we have 2 million illegals crossing our border every year, don’t tell me they just haven’t gotten lucky yet. If they wanted to attack us with suicide bombers, they could very easily do it, all day long. “No attack since 9-11″ is a crock, they have chosen not to attack us.

Actually I find myself agreeing with both you and e-pirate a little bit, but mostly e-pirate–especially since I said something similar a few years back in a post called ‘Fear Itself,’ appropriately enough.

About morons: stupidity can be lethal. As a matter of fact it often is, but only to the stupid most of the time. (Isn’t that what the Darwin Awards are about?)

Calling Islamist terrorists stupid is almost redundant. After all, if they were smart, they would put the formal education/natural abilities that many of them have in things like physics, architectural engineering, chemistry and the like into the betterment of the lot of other Muslims/Arabs/their countrymen instead of putting those talents into perfecting lethality of car bombs.

Are many Islamists clever, however? Most certainly. They know how to learn from tactical mistakes–like those made today. (And I agree with csdeven that it was another example of stupidity for UK authorities to publicize the reason that the car bombs were duds.)

Islamists are just not long term thinkers–unless you count the prospective reward that the other Allah is supposed to give them for murdering the infidels–and they underestimate those of us that would be willing to live and let live if they’d just stop “clownin’,.” Also, they refuse to analyze how the West has reacted once another civilization has pissed it off enough (yes, I still have optimism wrt our martial spirit).

Sometimes, just sometimes, I start to think that maybe I am too hard on liberals and that they mean well and are simply confused or mis-informed. Then I see the lib posts here about how this isn’t a big deal. It must be nice to be a liberal, all safe and snug in an inescapable cirlce of logic.

If an attack fails, any reporting on it is hype trying to scare the American public. The terrorists are “wannabes” and, by the way, it wouldn’t even had happened if we wern’t in Iraq.

If an attack succeeds, then not only is Bush/Blair/Brown an incompetant, but their policies are actually making us less safe i.e. Iraq caused it.

I was in my dorm at 200 Water Street 4 blocks away from the World Trade center when 9/11 happened.

I was evacuated in my pajamas and a borrowed pair of shoes (long story short – I’d gotten locked out of my room and the panicked RA’s wouldn’t let me back in).

That was Tuesday. On Thursday, Giulianni said that everyone should get back to business as usual. On Friday, I was back in class in a borrowed pair of sweats and my guy friends extra pair of shoes (size 14′s, I’m a womens size 6.5).

It felt way too soon to be ‘back to normal’ in my opinion. The funny thing was, everyone of the students in my class that were from Israel or had friends/family from Israel were saying how it was taking everyone too long to get back to normal. They had gotten so used to terrorism over there that a huge bombing could happen in the afternoon and, by the evening, the less damaged stores along that street would be opened for business.

Which, makes sense, if you want to give the terrorists the least satisfaction possible from the attack.

So, in that respect, I agree with e-pirate. The solution is not to be running around in a panic because there might be car bombs outside of all your favorite evening places.

However, I don’t think that’s what anyone is proposing. The reason (in my opinion anyhow) that people in Israel get back to business as usual so fast is that they know that, behind the scenes, their government is doing EVERYTHING possible to apprehend the terrorists and stop further attacks. Everything from profiling likely terrorists to building walls to keep terrorists out to surgical strikes on terrorist leaders and even (I’m guessing) torturing terrorists that may have information about current/future plots. So, yes, it’s fine for the average Israeli to get on with their day after an attack.

However, I don’t have that same confidence in my government (and, I’m willing to bet, the people in the UK shouldn’t either).

Unlike Israel, western countries have yet to show the same intense desire to survive as little ole Israel. Until I can be sure that my government is doing everything necessary to ensure the survival of my country and my way of life, everyone of these plots serves as a reminder that not enough is being done yet.

A stiff upper lip is fine. Hoping that the problem doesn’t exist if you just refuse to admit that there’s a problem. That’s suicide.

Excellent post and thank you for sharing your experience. I agree with you 100 percent. We should go on with our normal lives, but we should also be able to have confidence that our government is taking this threat seriously and not pandering to the jihadist groups in order to appease. Dinner parties for CAIR hosted government officials are not going to put an end to the threat.

We have to stop pretending that Islam is a moral religion. It is profoundly immoral, and we should say so. The proof of its immorality is there in a hundred different ways, especially in its sharia laws. The treatment of Women, apostates, and its barbaric punishments for minor infractions of religious laws are an abomination and affront to the civilized world.

So why all the pretense? Are we afraid to offend them?

Our Judeo/Christian moral principles are by far superior to anything that passes as morality in Islam. It’s more than just making a choice to tell Muslims the truth about their twisted religion, It’s a moral obligation on our part to confront evil whenever we see it. If we don’t, we betray ourselves, and lead Muslims to believe we respect their perverse practices and beliefs.

” Is there no way that the Brits could face down their government leaders as we have recently done? Any recourse at all?”

Hi, IrishEi. No, I don’t think the British public could have faced down our Government the way that the people of the US did over Shamnesty. We have no conservative talk radio network in the UK and a politically ineffective blogosphere. Our system gives the public little outlet to change government policy except for a vote every five years. The MSM, led by the multi-cultural champions of the BBC, is overwhelming liberal and apathetic, our big businesses want continual cheap imported labor and our education system teaches that mass immigration can only be good and that multi-culturalism is the only show in town. Most people are pissed off with the current immigration situation especially with the huge numbers of muslims still arriving in the UK from Somalia , Iraq and Pakistan. But we have no way to stop it as all the political parties are committed to allowing mass immigration
and the label of “racist” and “bigot” is applied to those who want to control our so-called borders.

Honestly, how will this all end? I just cannot imagine a scenario that doesn’t involve death on a massive scale. How do you turn back generations of people who have been brainwashed from the cradle to hate the West? If there could be some kind of Islamic Reformation, great but I don’t see it.

Why do you assume it’s .
9-11 had a profound effect on young muslims. It instilled in their hearts pride that someone had defended their religion so brave and effectively. A people who have been marginalized and rendered irrelevant look at the act differently. These people are not of our time. It’s a freaking time warp. Their men wear beards as a lion’s mane. They are so trumped up on their masculinity, they are capable of anything. These are the worst imaginable enemy. Shinto Japan was nasty. These farkers appear to a much greater threat. We have medieval on their asses but we can’t because their impotent masses aren’t really accountable for the actions of their lions. And if we make their condition more dire than it already is, we instill in their hearts the strength that comes from hating and fearing an enemy. We can’t do squat until they do more bad stuff to us.

“It was Bush’s fault he wanted to take away attention from the immigration bill. His father even paid the Hiltons to to insert a special laboratory embryo in Paris, France so they can give birth to a Bimbo to also take away attention.

Three men from Birmingham area being sought were just trying to follow Islamic teachings.

2:10 Disbelievers are diseased.
2:99 Disbelievers are evil people.
2:104 For disbelievers is a painful doom.
2:171 Disbelievers are deaf, dumb, and blind.
3:28 Let not the believers take disbelievers for their friends in preference of believers.
3:73 Don’t believe anyone who is not a Muslim.
3:48 Don’t be friends with non-Muslims. They all hate you and want to ruin you.
4:89 Have no unbelieving friends. Kill the unbelievers wherever you find them.
4:63 Oppose those who refuse to follow Muhammad.
4:101The disbelievers are an open enemy to you.
4:144 Do not choose disbelievers as friends.
5:51 Don’t take Jews or Christians for friends. If you do, then Allah will consider you to be one of them.
5:51 Jews and Christians are losers.
5:60 Allah turned unbelievers into apes and swine.
5:59 Jews and Christians are evil people.
9:5 Slay the disbelievers wherever you find them.

Guy is probably under the influence of something *or* just doesn’t know how to drive. Smacks into dumpster. Airbag deploys either front or “side impact” and smacks him pretty hard unexpectedly. That explains the “smoke” inside the passenger compartment (preservative powder that is released in an air bag deployment) and the “blankets” spilling out (that would be the side impact airbag spilling out). This might have also caused the vehicle’s electrical system to shut off (many have a system that shuts off the vehicle electricals in case of impact). This results in the cell phone still working (the “trigger”) but the rest of the electricals that would set off the individual charge(s) to be without power.

The guy “staggers” away because he just got smacked in the face with an air bag.

JadeNYU: “The reason (in my opinion anyhow) that people in Israel get back to business as usual so fast is that they know that, behind the scenes, their government is doing EVERYTHING possible to apprehend the terrorists and stop further attacks. …. So, yes, it’s fine for the average Israeli to get on with their day after an attack.”

JadeNYU, that’s one good reason to resume normal as soon as possible. The major good reason is to deny terrorists the power to change your life, which is what they want. Also, psychologically, it inflames the trauma to refuse to face the situation. For example, psychologists found that soldiers suffering from combat fatigue got worse if they were kept at the hospital to recover. The trauma was best tempered by returning as soon as possible to the front lines. We’re talking a matter of hours.

Resuming your normal life immediately is the best first reaction to terrorists. Of course, the best second reaction is to kill them, their leaders, and their financiers.

JadeNYU: “Unlike Israel, western countries have yet to show the same intense desire to survive as little ole Israel. Until I can be sure that my government is doing everything necessary to ensure the survival of my country and my way of life, everyone of these plots serves as a reminder that not enough is being done yet.”

Israel is a country hanging by a thread in a very hostile neighborhood. It’s one Persian nuke away from extinction. America is a different matter. Nobody wants to get into a nuke-throwing contest with us.

The survival of America is not at stake here. We are going to win the war with the Muslims, who will fade into irrelevance when the Saudi oil deposits run out or a new fuel is developed. Saudi petrodollars is the fuel that inflames the Muslim jihad. Islam without petrodollars is a weak, stupid, and backward religion for losers which would not be able to project power outside the deserts where it grows like a poisonous little cactus.

However, a lot of blood and money is going to be spent fighting these murdering scum until then.

It was disgruntled Norsemen trying to get even for their defeat in 1066 only to have the Norman’s finish the job a few weeks later. They have smoldered for years over their bitter defeat by the Anglo-Saxons and are just now beginning to exact their revenge on all of Europe. After all it is Viking youths trying to burn Paris to the ground. Who’d of thunk it!

Codec717: “If there could be some kind of Islamic Reformation, great but I don’t see it.”

The Islamic reformation has already taken place. It’s called Islamism and directs its followers back to the original Islam which is intolerant and violent. These bombings are the product of that reformation.

…If someone had told my grandfather’s generation that islamists would blow-up tube trains and slaughter Britons and then march UNOPPOSED thru the streets of London calling for the deaths of infidels they would never believe it. We get on with our lives also because we have no choice – we have to go to work, earn money and pay our bills. Meanwhile our rubbish immigration system allows thousands more islamists into the country every year. We have come to accept that we will be mugged by Somali gangs, have our women raped by Arabs, be blown-up by youth of Pakistani descent
and be threatened by muslim spokesmen in our own country. We don’t react because our political elite have taught us that we must never be outraged by the new arrivals to our country.

London Boy on June 29, 2007 at 5:28 PM

…We have no conservative talk radio network in the UK and a politically ineffective blogosphere. Our system gives the public little outlet to change government policy except for a vote every five years. The MSM, led by the multi-cultural champions of the BBC, is overwhelming liberal and apathetic, our big businesses want continual cheap imported labor and our education system teaches that mass immigration can only be good and that multi-culturalism is the only show in town. Most people are pissed off with the current immigration situation especially with the huge numbers of muslims still arriving in the UK from Somalia , Iraq and Pakistan. But we have no way to stop it as all the political parties are committed to allowing mass immigration
and the label of “racist” and “bigot” is applied to those who want to control our so-called borders.

The reason (in my opinion anyhow) that people in Israel get back to business as usual so fast is that they know that, behind the scenes, their government is doing EVERYTHING possible to apprehend the terrorists and stop further attacks. ……. A stiff upper lip is fine. Hoping that the problem doesn’t exist if you just refuse to admit that there’s a problem. That’s suicide.

Resuming your normal life immediately is the best first reaction to terrorists. Of course, the best second reaction is to kill them, their leaders, and their financiers.

Tantor on June 29, 2007 at 9:48 PM

I agree – but I’d reverse the order.

If only for the sheer satisfaction of going after the fanatical freaks. Good times.

The survival of America is not at stake here.

You lost me on that one, though emotionally I want to agree. It worries me that we throw that idea around so easily.

The historical reality is that great powers can be brought down surprisingly easily. History is full of examples of empires that fell into decline, with the trigger being relatively minor events. I have no doubt that when Alexander of Macedon invaded Persia with his little army, a great many Persians were confidently pointing out that “the survival of the Empire isn’t at stake.”

They would have looked right, too, at the time. A decade later, the Persian Empire was no more.

The truth is that while they certainly can’t kill us all (yet), a relatively “minor” attack could end our world dominance, maybe even split the country apart. Smuggled nukes into just one major city would destroy the economy; our economy is, in fact, our weak point. Hit us there, and the world becomes half Chinese and half Muslim, with America and Europe relegated to second-class status.

Hyperbole? Maybe. But history suggests dismissing it easily is dangerous.

There are a billion Muslims. A significant percentage would like to destroy all of Western civilization. I think the survival of America – of freedom everywhere – just may be at stake.

Please don’t give Moe a bad name…he would have been on our side. Howeva-this guy or guys do seem to be Stooges.
I can hear the lefties muttering about how Islamo-phobia has fueled this near-attack. We, the West, are forever the cause of terrorism, and because we are imperialists, we deserve it.

Rudy/Bolton is a sweet dream but the dreamiest would be Hunter/Bolton.

It’s a shame, really. If Britain wasn’t so dominated by gutless little leftist pansies, they’d probably be gutting the Islamic ghettos by now, looking for the rest of the hateful little Muslim Nazis that are actively planning their deaths.

Instead, they’ll carry on with a stiff upper lip and all that rot, and pretend that Britain is somehow not in the midst of social suicide.

I have to correct an earlier post by max1 regarding the IRA and terrorism and explain something many of you probably won’t like to read.

max1 said

don’t know if you’re being sarcastic, but it actually is kind of unlike the IRA… most (if not all) of their bombs were placed at military targets (or at least pubs, etc. where primarlity British military were known to hang out)
There are lots of people who love to argue that the IRA are (were?) the same thing as the Islam-fascists…
personally i disagree… for lots of reasons…

For the record, a lesser number of attacks were indeed directed against ‘soft’ military targets in England, for example:
Royal Marines music school, Kent
Ceremonial Horse Guard, The Mall – (victims included tourists)
Army bus, Chelsea, London – (dead included school children)
Army bus, North of England – target: soldiers and their families (dead included school children)
Aldershot barracks – target: civilian workers at the base
Guildford pub bombings – targets: off-duty soldiers as well as ordinary people having a night out
Any cursory search of the internet will reaveal that most victims of the IRA were civilians, whatever the location.
The casualties we suffered here in the UK, over recent years, were not dissimilar to what America suffered albiet on a single day on 9/11.

2. “There are lots of people who love to argue that the IRA are (were?) the same thing as the Islam-fascists…personally i disagree…”
WRONG AGAIN: the IRA had close links to terrorists in the Middle East including the PLO, to ETA in Spain, and to terrorists in South America. Like the rest, the IRA had no qualms killing children; the similarities are greater than the differences, and I think their victims would find it very difficult see any difference at all.

Many people in England believe our government’s surrender to Irish Nationalist terrorists has given inspiration to the cause of terrorism the world over. I live in England. America is a great country and a great people, I would move there tomorrow if I had the chance. But this has to be told: it was support from certain Americans and American politicians and “civil rights” people that enabled the IRA to carry its campaign as far as it did. Without that American support, international terrorism might not be where it is today. On 9/11 many of us in England thought, sadly, “what comes around, goes around”…